Ah, Christmas. A most beautiful time of the year. The lights, the trees, the snow…And the joy of giving gifts to one another and quite simply being together to celebrate. Can't get much better than that, eh?

To be Nobodies, and supposedly have no emotions, most members of Organization XIII were abnormally merry on this fine Christmas night. They gave each other gifts, drank hot chocolate or egg nog together and chatted, sat by a warm fire…They all seemed content.

Except for one. The Scrooge of the crowd, some had called him. Zexion. He sat in a corner, all by his lonesome, emo self. Just reading. What else could he do? He had no gifts to give, and he doubted he had any to receive. So there he sat, book in his hands, glasses on his nose, reading.

He glanced up after hearing Demyx giggling about something Axel had just said. Zexion looked around at everyone, and wondered what was so great about this holiday to them all. He failed to see why it made them so happy. It just felt like another night to him.

Larxene was standing around Marluxia, talking to him. She wasn't in a foul mood, like she usually was.

Roxas was sitting around the fire with Axel and Demyx, chatting with them about heaven knew what.

Vexen was telling Lexaeus about some Scientific break-through, or something like that. Xigbar, Xaldin and Luxord were drinking egg nog, discussing their favorite brands of wine. Xemnas and Saïx were…well, Xemnas had had a tad too much egg nog for his own good, and was going on about some nonsense, while Saïx simply made sure the Superior didn't do something stupid, or faint one.

Zexion, having looked all over the room to see what was just described, looked back down at his book and continued reading.

He was in the middle of a very important chapter, so into what was going on in the book he didn't even know what was happening around him anymore. Though, he did suddenly notice that he was very uncomfortable sitting on the hard floor. So he stood up, never taking his eyes off the pages of the book, and leaned his back against the wall.

Suddenly, someone bumped into him. Enough force was behind it to knock his glasses off. They fell, hit the floor, and one of the lenses popped out. He looked up to see it was Xemnas who had bumped into him. Saïx came trailing behind the drunken Xemnas. And as he past, he looked and Zexion and apologized for what had just happened, considering he was partially responsible for it because he had made the mistake of taking his eyes off Xemnas for five seconds and let him stray from his side. Zexion only shrugged. He was annoyed that he had been bothered, yes, but he didn't let it show.

He bent down to pick his glasses back up, and try to fix them. He reached to get the lens that had come out, but was beat to it. A small and dainty, black-gloved hand picked up the lens before he did. Zexion looked up to see who it was, and found himself looking into Larxene's piercing green eyes.

They both stood back up, and she handed him the lens.

"Thank you…" He practically whispered.

"No problem." She responded, smiling.

He looked down at his glasses and the lens. Past that, he could see Larxene was holding something in her left hand. A not so small something, too. He wondered how he had missed it a moment ago, when she first came up.

Ignoring that for the moment, Zexion started trying to fix his glasses. He fumbled with them for several minutes, until finally he popped the lens back in place. Larxene hadn't moved yet.

He looked up and almost said, 'What?' in a callous tone. But before he got the word out of his mouth, she extended her left hand to him. In it was a beautifully wrapped present, with a simple bow and nametag on it. She had waited on him to fix his glasses so she could give him a gift.

Zexion's expression went from it's normal, rather sour look, to one of slight surprise. Someone did have a gift for him. Larxene, at that. One of the meanest women you could ever imagine had thought about Zexion, and bought him something. He stared at the present for longer than he meant to, when she finally said,

"Are you going to take it and open it, or what?" In an impatient tone. She was tapping her foot impatiently.

Zexion finally accepted the gift. He held it for a moment, looking at every little detail on the small package. Larxene had put much effort into wrapping it to perfection. He gently peeled back some of the tape on one end of the gift, careful not to tear the wrapping paper.

"You don't have to worry about saving that paper," Larxene pointed out, obviously wanting him just to open it and get it over with. He slowly unwrapped it so he wouldn't rip the paper anyway. But she didn't say anything else about it.

After all the tape had been carefully undone, he gently took the paper off the top of the gift, to reveal a simple white box. A gift box, evidently. It was taped closed by two small strips of tape on two sides of the box parallel to each other. He carefully peeled the tape off the sides, so it wouldn't tear and mess up. Besides, boxes could be re-used as long as people took care not to mess them up.

Larxene seemed a little edgy, but not as bad as she might have been normally. Normally she would have already shouted at him to just open the stupid thing.

Zexion finally took the top off the box, and saw tissue inside covering the gift itself. He moved the tissue aside, and finally, after the long process of opening the present, there it was: a huge, thick book. It was one he had been secretly wanting. How did she know?

He got the book out of the box and stared at it in awe, and he flipped through some of the pages.

"Like it?" She finally asked. He only nodded. He was so surprised, he didn't really know what to say. How was a Nobody surprised when they can't feel emotions? Because this was genuine surprise. Something that can happen even to a Nobody.

"Good," She said. "I had hoped you would."

"How did you…?" He looked up from it and asked.

"I just guessed, really, and hoped you would like it anyway." She shrugged.

"Thank you," He said. This time it was audible.

"No problem." She said, just as she had earlier, and smiled at him again. Not a cruel, malicious smile like most people saw her with. No, this was something else. A nice smile. Coming from her, that was quite a thing to see.

Zexion realized he had nothing for her. Not a thing.

"Larxene, I--"

"Oh, don't worry about it." She said, patting him lightly on the shoulder. "I don't expect anything in return." She turned and walked back to where she had been standing with Marluxia around the Christmas tree. As she did, she looked back at him and winked. He only smiled ever so slightly, put his glasses back on, leaned back against the wall where he had been before, and started reading the book she had given him. His mood had lightened, and he felt slightly more happy now. Maybe this Christmas thing wasn't so bad after all.